Time to get serious about truck bypass (Fallon)

[struggle4progress]

The residents of Fernley got a good scare last week when a 10,000-gallon tanker carrying pressurized liquid natural gas sprang a leak and caught fire in the middle of a parking lot next to Interstate 80.

Fortunately the worst-case scenario - an explosion that could have destroyed everything within a one-mile radius - never materialized, thanks, in part, to some heads-up action on the part of local firefighters. <snip>

Fallon, located at the crossroads of two U.S. highways in a major shipping corridor, is especially vulnerable to a truck-related disaster. Highway 95 is a major arterial feeding Las Vegas with all kinds of substances arriving from all over the U.S. Some of those substances, possibly including radioactive waste bound for Yucca Mountain, move to southern Nevada through the heart of downtown Fallon. In fact, they have to drive down Maine Street past Fallon's historic wooden courthouse. Imagine the chaos that would have prevailed had the Fernley tanker caught on fire at the intersection of Maine and Williams in Fallon. <snip>

http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20050920/Opinion/109200016